Bigger than Bieber

A RIPON teenager has beaten pop sensation and internet behemoth Justin Bieber at his own game by becoming one of the most talked about people on Twitter - for around 10 minutes.

Seventeen-year-old artist Toby Kinread was, for a time on Sunday, April 22, the most popular topic on Twitter in the UK.

Toby Kinread's digital portait of Alan Sugar (S)

Toby found huimself at the centre of the storm of attention after creating a digital portrait of Apprentice boss Alan Sugar, which he sent to several past Apprentice candidates on Twitter, asking them to pass the portrait on to Lord Sugar himself.

Claire Young, a runner up in the 2008 series, sent to painting to Lord Sugar, who then tweeted Toby to thank him.

Toby said: “I asked him to share my painting with his 1.8 million followers and he did, before again tweeting: “Great painting of me, you need to do @piersmorgan go to gorilla section at zoo for the model.

“After he tweeted this, thousands of his followers looked at my painting, it received 20,000 views and then I was flooded with tweets from people complimenting me and asking about my art. I then became the top trending topic on Twitter in the UK, ahead of BBC’s The Voice and Justin Bieber.”

For around 10 minutes on Sunday evening, Toby’s name was the most popular topic on the UK version of the website.

Toby’s Lord Sugar painting has now been viewed 22,500 times, and 500 new people started to follow him on Twitter.

Toby, who is studying for his A-levels at Ripon Grammar School, draws and paints on digital drawing tablet.

Last year he won praise from singer Rihanna for a portrait of her, as well as former US chat show host Larry King and 2010 X factor contestant Cher Lloyd.